Russian oligarch threatens to sue media over opposition investigation

MOSCOW — A Russian business mogul allied with President Vladi­mir Putin threatened Friday to sue media outlets for reporting accusations that the tycoon held a secret meeting with a senior Russian government official aboard his yacht in 2016.

The allegations, stemming from an investigation by Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, come as Russia heads toward a presidential election next month that is expected to keep Putin in office.

Oleg Deripaska, who owns one of Russia’s largest industrial groups, said in a statement that the investigation by Navalny was part of a “planned campaign aiming to damage my reputation.”

In a video posted to YouTube, the opposition leader accused ­Deripaska of bribing the official, Sergei Prikhodko, a deputy prime minister and former aide to Putin, by entertaining him on his yacht with several women described as escorts. The video has attracted more than 1.2 million views but no official reaction.

Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny published a video Thursday in which he accuses one of Russia’s richest men of bribing a top government official by entertaining him on his yacht with several women described as escorts.

In the video posted to YouTube, Navalny says that his team of anti-corruption activists unearthed Instagram posts by a woman who said she worked for an escort agency and claimed to have been romantically involved with billionaire Oleg Deripaska. The Instagram posts appear to show the aluminum tycoon relaxing on a yacht in Norway in 2016.

In several videos, Deripaska appears to be joined by at least one other woman, as well as by Sergei Prikhodko — a deputy prime minister in the Russian government.

“An oligarch takes a top government official on a ride on his own yacht — that’s a bribe,” Navalny says in the video. “An oligarch pays for all of this, including young women from escort agencies. Believe it or not, this is also a bribe.”